VOLTA Basel

Booth C11

Dreispitzhalle Basel, Switzerland

June 11 – 16, 2012

Press Release

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce our participation in the eight edition of VOLTA Basel with a solo presentation featuring Hugo Crosthwaite.

Hugo Crosthwaite’s most recent series, Tijuanerias, pays homage to Goya's "Caprichos" with its depiction of grotesque figures and themes executed in an informal, sketch-like style. Allowing the act of drawing to organically dictate his compositions, his figures—the everyday men, women and children that populate his native city of Tijuana—are presented in a non-idealized documentary style that allows them to appear in their humble familiarity and authenticity. Crosthwaite alternates between mythological subjects and contemporary ones, often combining the two.

Francisco Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Doré, Jose Guadalupe Posada, and Arnold Böcklin are among the many artists that have inspired his work. He also includes an exploration of modern abstraction in his compositions, which he approaches in a totally improvisational manner. The joining of abstraction with classically-rendered imagery creates a feeling of spontaneity and vagueness; each work becomes an enfoldment of personal vision in which reality, history, and mythology collide as he explores the complexities of human expression.

Hugo Crosthwaite earned a BA in Applied Arts from San Diego State University. His 10x25 ft epic mural, “Death March”, is currently on view in Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection at the Chicago Cultural Center (thru July 8, 2012). Recent exhibitions include Tijuanerias at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite, a solo at San Diego Museum of Art; El Grito/The Cry for Freedom, at University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AK.